VIDEO: Marshawn Lynch shows, Pete Carroll shrugs

While the big news of the day from the outside was that Marshawn Lynch showed up at Seahawks mini-camp today, coach Pete Carroll insisted he didn’t see what the fuss was all about.

“Yeah, it was a big story,” Carroll said as he met the media after Tuesday’s mini-camp opener. “We expected him to be here and he’s here, you know?”

Lynch did nothing during the workout, watching from the sidelines. But Carroll said that was due to a sore ankle that Lynch recently tweaked.

“We’re just taking care of it, making sure it’s okay,” Carroll said, adding that Lynch likely won’t participate in any of mini-camp. “There’s enough there that we don’t want to mess with it.”

Carroll said he would not discuss whether Lynch wants changes to his contract,, saying the team has never discussed contract issues of players in the past and won’t now.

But he said he has been in constant communication with Lynch throughout the off-season and seemed to characterize everything as business as usual, including the fact that Lynch did not attend OTAs earlier.

“I’ve talked to him a number of times and everybody at one time or another has been in contact with him,” Carroll said. “He’s made it very easy on us to do that and we have a great relationship. He’s got a great relationship with our club and our teammates and the coaches and all that. We have rested him a lot in the off-season. He takes a big pounding during the year. It takes him a long time to get his body back to where he doesn’t feel the rigors of the season that’s passed and we really, in this case it’s unique. But he is a unique player and he has a unique role on our football team, so we have to do what we have to do to take care of himself.

“You won’t see him get the ball a lot in the pre-season. We will work all the way to the opening day and see if we can get him right there for then and that’s what’s most important.”

Asked if he had had any conversations with Lynch about a change in his role going forward, Carroll said: “We have never even approached that because that’s not even a question. It’s never even come up.”

And asked if he expected Lynch to still be the “bell cow” of the offense this season, Carroll said: “Absolutely. We expect him to come right back in and battling and doing the things that he does. Turbo (Robert Turbin) and Christine (Michael), those guys want some time, too, and they are battling and had a great off-season for us. But Marshawn has really been the guy for us and we love everything about the way he plays and what he brings to this team and he has never taken a step backwards at any time for us in all the time that we’ve been here.”

There was no other significant personnel new today.

Here’s some video of Carroll talking about Lynch and a few other times today: